


The Wayfarer

by TheGrinningKitten



Series: His Story [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Annihilator!Error, Despair, Gen, Horror, Negative!Dream, Pathlighter!Blue, Scar!Ink, Soul-Searching, Suicide, Tail!Error, Zero Infinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGrinningKitten/pseuds/TheGrinningKitten
Summary: A note from the translator:"His Story" is actually a series of stories in nature. However, originally, all of its stories were posted as one single fic, but due to AO3's capabilities, the translated stories are separated into actual fics under the same series.The preface by the author (which was originally a separate chapter) is available onthe main page of the "His Story" series.Thank you for your attention and enjoy!
Relationships: Dust & Blue
Series: His Story [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124066
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Его история (История 2 - Путник)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/755787) by Elena Troitskaya (Sariko). 



> **A note from the translator:**
> 
> "His Story" is actually a series of stories in nature. However, originally, all of its stories were posted as one single fic, but due to AO3's capabilities, the translated stories are separated into actual fics under the same series.
> 
> The preface by the author (which was originally a separate chapter) is available on [the main page of the "His Story" series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124066).
> 
> Thank you for your attention and enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Glizi Sweet](https://twitter.com/GliziSweet) and [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

The lamp kept swinging noiselessly on top of the pole, bathing the surrounding several meters in the light of the soul inside. The ever-whispering darkness kept following its prey — its well-deserved prey that was ready to become one with it yet was so dastardly torn out of its grasp at the very last moment.

Now that prey was under the light’s protection, and it was walking away, surprised by the kindness the soulless creature had shown it as it tightly held onto its savior’s hand.

The prey in question was Dust.

Dust had no idea where the strength to fight had come from and why he’d suddenly tore off the spot in his rush to get to the light. Perhaps, it was because that light was warm, or perhaps, it was because it was the cheerful and compassionate Blueberry holding the lamp. At least, he  _ used to be _ cheerful and compassionate.

Dust ran up to him and pulled him into a hug: “I’m so glad to see you! If you’re here, it means I’m not the only one who survived!”

He was surprised when the ever-cheerful Blue didn’t hug him back. The kid must’ve been startled. After all, it’s not every day that a serial killer with more than a few screws hopelessly lost, is happy to see you. Or perhaps, the kid was just as lost and confused about where they were.

If Dust was in his comfort zone of death and destruction, he never would’ve wished for this parody of a Sans to hug him — but here, lost in this strange and terrifying place, where even the ghost of his brother refused to show his face, Dust wanted to feel another person’s warmth and hear their words of comfort.

The problem was that the body inside Dust’s embrace had no warmth to share. It was actually surprisingly cold. He didn’t get any comforting words or silly promises either. That’s when Dust toned down on the excitement and pulled away from Blue. He took a closer look at the kid and started to slowly back away.

“Who the Void are you?!”

He kept backing away, until the dark amalgamation once again had him in its greedy claws. However, before it could celebrate its victory, it was once again scared off by the light of the soul.

Blue — a pathligher — was slowly walking towards the terrified Dust. His eyes were void of any meaning or feeling — which was further complemented by the emptiness inside his ribcage.

He stopped a step away from Dust. He was soulless and cold but — unlike the darkness — he meant the murderer no harm, and the soft light of the soul coming from inside the lamp felt like a beacon, inviting him to travel. Blue’s expressionless eyes seemed to look past Dust. Gone were the familiar stars, and the circles of eyelights looked dull, especially in comparison with the blindingly bright soul.

Blue didn’t answer Dust’s question but held out his hand. And Dust took it.

That’s how his long trek through the darkness started — in silence, accompanied by the whispers in the dark and protected by the light of Blue’s soul.

Dust kept thinking of all sorts of eerie things. For example, he was belatedly struck with the idea that he was in the bowels of Purgatory, and the soulless Blue was taking him to Hell. He had a hard time believing a more optimistic version of this was possible: one where Blue could be leading him towards light and peace.

His world was dead, after all. Not just his world — his whole Multiverse fell into obscurity — which meant he must've gone with it.

Thoughts such as this one kept weighing him down: the kind of heavy burden that he wished to share with someone. There was no one but his soulless guide available though, so that’s who he chose to share his story with. It was long and bleak, which seemed to fit the atmosphere around them perfectly.

_ Back at the beginning, things weren’t so bad. He was a regular monster, living in a regular world. He had a brother, a job, a few friends. Then came a human and ruined his fragile happiness. In all honesty, if all of the evil they’d caused stayed with them — on their hands and in their LV — Sans wouldn’t have hated them. He had always been too lazy for hatred. He would’ve accepted it as his fate: He got to see everyone he held dear die. And then he died himself. _

_ The problems started when he woke up alive and lived through that pain again. And again. And again. More than three hundred “again”s. _

_ No one would’ve stayed sane after going through this torment. Sans wasn’t an exception. _

_ He just wanted the pain to stop. And yet, he was so consumed with achieving his goal that he forgot about the other things that no longer mattered. Sans only realized his mistake when his own jacket turned grey with dust, when his own bone attacks pierced the chest of his dear brother. When, for the first time, the human looked horrified upon leaving the Ruins. _

_ The human refused to return after their death. They left Sans to rot away, all alone in the crumbling world. _

_ Sins, regrets, pain and loneliness kept bearing down on the skeleton for years, exacerbating the long-present schizophrenia. Sans could no longer tell what was real and what was a product of his sick mind. The ghost of Papyrus, for example, must’ve been real, because he didn’t let him forget his sins. The octopus that came out of a portal, however, was definitely a hallucination — and hallucinations had to be ignored. _

_ “I’m talking to you, you doormat!” Nightmare snapped at the skeleton, who kept ignoring him, and picked him up with his tentacles. He gave his captive a shake, unleashing a thick cloud of dust into the air — thick enough to hide Sans from sight for a couple of moments. _

_ “Oh! So you’re real? On second thought… Nah, definitely not. There’s no one alive here: I’ve killed them all!” _

_ Nightmare was pretty skeptical as he examined this epitome of a mental disorder in action, unsure whether he had use for such an unstable specimen. However, the dust covering the jacket and the smile that spoke of hidden pain, helped him make his choice: “You’ll do, dusty. If you pledge your loyalty to me, I’ll take you to my castle.” _

_ “Dusty? Oh, right. I’m a dusty throw rug, right?!” Sans guffawed. _

_ Nightmare cringed and figured he’d get the answer out of him later, when the lunatic had his symptoms better handled and believed in reality more than in his sick fantasies. He took the new recruit to his lair, where his previously acquired rogues were waiting. _

_ “Who’s that, Boss?” Killer was watching the new delivery with unmistakable disgust. _

_ “Is it food?” The ever-hungry Horror pulled out an axe. _

_ “No, you idiots. It’s your new teammate!” Nightmare said and put Sans down on the floor. The new arrival looked around, saw two alternate versions of himself and immediately engaged in a conversation with someone invisible. He lowered himself to the floor then and started to sway from side to side. _

_ Killer and Horror shared a look then stared at their boss with the same expression of confusion written on their faces. Their leader responded with the same sort of expression, then faltered and addressed his team: “He’s not sane…” _

_ “We’ve noticed!” _

_ “...so you’re going to watch him and call me once this duster’s mind clears. Or whenever he starts making more sense.” Nightmare hurried to retire to his chambers, not willing to play a part in this farce. _

_ His soldiers cringed but didn’t argue. _

_ “Maybe we could hit him with something heavy and tell Night he’d offed himself?” Killer suggested, grinning. _

_ “Or we could eat him and tell Night he ran away?” Horror supported the idea of getting rid of the lunatic. _

_ They didn’t bother keeping their voices low, but this still got no reaction from the new Sans. He was still sitting, swaying and talking to things no one else could see. _

_ Nothing could bring him back to reality. Horror even offered him a chunk of meat, practically putting his heart — well, not exactly  _ his _ — into the gesture. It didn’t help. Killer tried poking a knife into the spaces between the other’s ribs, and got the same lack of reaction. _

_ In the end, they left him be and were extremely surprised when a couple of hours later he got up and came over himself. He didn’t ask many questions: only clarified whether he was asleep and where he was. He wasn’t at all surprised to find out that he wasn’t asleep, that he was surrounded by alternate versions of himself, and that he was actually in an entirely different universe. He wasn’t able to talk to Nightmare that day though, having withdrawn into his shell, overwhelmed by the new information. _

_ He only managed to talk to his boss a couple of days later. As Killer eloquently put it, his screws tightened — the ones that were still left, that is. _

_ Sans reacted calmly to the idea of terrorizing worlds in the company of lowlifes like himself. He didn’t mind his new nickname — Dust — either. In general, he only had three states of being: “I’m gonna kill everyone”, “I’m talking to my brother”, and “I’m a little flower”. The third one was the calmest one: in this state Dust dissociated from reality and withdrew into the unknowable depths of his mind. The first one occurred when Nightmare ordered him to attack, and in these moments the only thing the formerly pacifistic Sans could think about was raising his LV. When he was in his second state, Dust was talkative and non-aggressive — because Papyrus didn’t like violence. _

_ The screws were slowly returning to their rightful places. Dust started to take more interest in what was happening around him. _

_ He didn’t particularly like what was going on though. There had been a time when he wanted to protect his friends and himself from chaos and pain — and what had he come to? He was the one breaking down the defences of Sanses akin to himself and ruining their dreams. It’s as if he’d become a Chara. _

_ Maybe, this was the right way to go about it? _

_ No, not really, as the team of the guardians of AUs — Ink, Blue and Dream — had shown him. One day the three of them came and gave the whole gang a good thrashing. _

_ At first Dust was actually open-minded to the idea of this trio’s existence — but then he asked himself: Where were they when he was suffering? Why didn’t they help him? _

_ He asked Ink about this during one of their fights, and the answer he received knocked him off balance for a good long while: _

_ “Such is your fate, Sans. And you should’ve accepted it instead of hanging out with the bad guys. Besides, I have no right to interfere with the natural order of things inside the universes. Sorry about that.” _

_ Apology not accepted! How could he even accept it from the person, who openly suggested he returned to the life of pain and loneliness? Fate? Well, maybe  _ this _ was his fate: causing mayhem, creating chaos and multiplying pain!” _

_ Out of the three guardians of the AUs, only Blue turned out to be a nice person to talk to. Dust discovered it when the youngest guardian ended up as their prisoner. _

_ Blue treated Dust’s story with understanding and was sympathetic to his plight. He asked the murderer to leave Nightmare and try searching for a new path in life. _

_ “Anybody can be a good person if they just try.” _

_ These were the words his brother said a long time ago — right before he died. _

_ Blue didn’t die. He was saved. And Dust started to consider his options. Perhaps, it would really be best for him to leave the gang? _

_ However, before Dust had the opportunity to make the final decision, a chain of events happened that came to be the beginning of the end. _

_ Nightmare killed Dream and ate the apple of his soul like a ripe fruit. _

_ This upset the balance. It grew fragile like an egg shell, and Nightmare used this opportunity to conquer universe after universe, turning the entire Multiverse dark and unstable. Bright emotions started to fade away, while the darker ones grew excessively. There was nothing the remaining guardians could do to stop him. They could only watch the Multiverse fall to ruin. _

_ Then the Multiverse faced another upheaval: Error killed Ink. _

_ There was no one left to protect the worlds then. Blue couldn’t even protect himself, and he was about to join his friends in death — but something happened in that moment. Something frightening. _

_ Killer had already raised the knife over the crying last guardian for the final strike — when everyone heard an eerie voice. It came like a punch to the gut, leaving everyone’s backs slick with sweat and souls beating in agony. _

_ “You failed to meet the expectations placed upon you!” _

_ The battle came to a halt. No one — not even Nightmare — could force themself to keep going. Everyone felt the awful pressure of the unknown force — and something else too. It felt as if not only all of the happiness vanished from the Multiverse, but it also took every shred of emotions, desires, wishes and hopes with it. _

_ For the first time ever, Nightmare was scared, and for once, he regretted killing his brother. Even Error piped down, holed up inside his abode all of a sudden, like a black cat in a dark room, and stopped showing up. The others seemed to turn into ghosts of their former selves, searching for the peace they’d lost. _

_ The last time Dust saw Blue was inside Ink’s Void. The kid was silent, standing still, like a statue, and staring up at the painted sky with an empty sort of look inside his bright eyes. He noticed Dust and gave him a weak smile: _

_ “This is the end, right?” was the only thing he said then. _

_ Dust didn’t answer. He didn’t want to lie, didn’t like to make promises, and didn’t know what was going on. So he walked up to the other and stared up at the painted sky as well. _

_ They remained like that until  _ it _ came. _

_ It was an… indescribable  _ something _ — as if someone wounded the Multiverse itself, and the wound split forth to form the shape of a living being. It had everything inside it: light and darkness, life and death, all and nothing — and all of it kept flickering like stars and burning out. _

_ No one could do anything about this thing. The moment anyone got close, they got sucked into this creature — to the place where hundreds of worlds rested already. _

_ It came — and the Multiverse simply ceased to exist. Everyone ceased to exist. Even the Void ceased to exist. _

_ Dust thought he’d ceased to exist as well. He found himself lying in pitch darkness, and he was just trying to grasp what had happened, when the darkness spoke to him all of a sudden. It surrounded him at all sides, promising to give him peace as it clung to him with hundreds of hands and called him with thousands of voices. _

_ “Join us! You’ll like it with us! You’ll never be alone!” _

_ “Don’t touch me!” Dust screamed and tried to fight back with magic — only to find that he had no magic left — and physical strength meant nothing in a fight against this creature. _

_ The darkness kept pulling him in, squeezing him in its deadly embrace and smothering him with promises. Dust was about to give in… when he saw Blue. He felt the other’s warm bright light and broke out of the scorching embrace. _

That’s how Dust ended up as a new resident of Zero Infinity, trekking through the thick darkness with the formerly cheerful guardian — now a soulless guide, whose soul was trapped within the cage of a lamp. Dust recounted his life’s story for his companion and got no response. He had no idea where he was led to and why. He simply kept walking, thinking about the way his guide’s hand felt surprisingly cold and dead in his palm. He’d probably end up this way too.

His eyes were drawn to the hole in the other’s chest: the torn edges of the fabric around it, the bared teeth of the broken ribs and the darkness within the body.

“Did it hurt?” Dust asked. He wasn’t expecting an answer. “Are you taking me to the person who would do the same to me? Who’d tear my soul out and put it into a cage?”

Blue’s eyes momentarily twitched in an attempt to become stars, and he squeezed Dust’s hand tighter in an attempt to comfort him. Though, perhaps, Dust was imagining things. He couldn’t even guarantee the things he was seeing weren’t all a figment of his imagination. Maybe he was actually somewhere inside Night’s castle, huddled in a corner and drooling as he stared at a wall?

Ah, if only it was so! But no, everything that had happened to him was a bitter reality.

“And I thought it couldn’t get worse! I killed everyone in my world. Went insane. Ended up in Nightmare’s gang. Kept bringing chaos and death into others’ worlds. Helped destabilize the balance and saw the death of my Multiverse. And now I’m actually afraid to say that it can’t get any worse — because I know it can! And I’m scared to find out how.”

He wasn’t imagining things: Blue actually squeezed his hand tighter for a moment, and Dust thought he caught a glimpse of the familiar comforting spark in the other’s dull eyelights.

“Thanks. You always knew how to give people hope, Blue.”

Their trek through the darkness seemed to be going on forever, and at some point Dust grew weary. One moment he was walking — and the next he fell down to the stone-covered floor, exhausted. The rocks dug into his bones painfully with their sharp edges.

“Weird. Where did all these rocks come from? There’s nothing here after all — only emptiness, darkness and the amalgamation.” All of this seemed odd to him. Was there someone in here building houses that fell apart with time? “Where did all these rocks come from, Blue?”

In a way of answering the question, Blue upped the brightness of the soul inside the lamp and held it up higher, illuminating the statue-filled space around them.

Dust was instantly covered in cold sweat. A real graveyard spread around him: statues in place of headstones, and stones in place of dust. These were eerie sculptures of lives’ final moments — and Dust knew all of the deceased. Here, Nightmare was hiding his face in his hands. Here, his brother froze, his final tears unshed. Here, Horror was gnawing on his own arm. Here, Killer was stabbing himself in the chest with a knife. Here, Ink was lying on the ground and blankly staring up at the darkness of the ceiling. Here, Chara was leaning on a statue of Asriel. Here, Error froze, an insane grin on his face. And here… was Dust himself — standing and smiling at someone invisible.

Dust came closer to his statue.The gray stone was cold and lifeless, yet formed his perfect copy, except… Dust looked at his own jacket, then compared it to the one on the stone statue. They had a slightly different pocket cut. Then he examined the copy’s face and saw a thin line of a scar he didn’t have. The statue was also missing a few fingers — while Dust managed to keep the whole set.

He was hit with a realization: It was one of his alternate selves he was looking at, not himself.

“Right. If alternate universes exist, then why can’t alternate Multiverses, right? Are we in one of them?”

Blue didn’t answer. He was staring at his own statue.

The stone Blue was lying a little ways away from the others. It was easy to see this kid had been through a lifetime worth of hardships, and they left horrifying marks on his body. Then, one day, the stone Blue gave up. He lied down and couldn't get up anymore. This challenge became the one the kid wasn’t able to handle.

Dust looked at the stone figure as sadness welled up inside him, and asked, “Please, wherever you’re taking me, let’s just keep going.”

The pathlighter gave him a barely perceptible nod and held out his hand again, waited for Dust to take it and continued their journey through the darkness. The light of his soul provided Dust with hope — provided him with strength to keep on walking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Glizi Sweet](https://twitter.com/GliziSweet) and [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

Sometimes they crossed paths with the same kind of people as Blue: soulless beings carrying a light in their hands. Dust was incredibly shocked to see a version of himself in such a role. The alternate version of him walked past them with… Blue in tow.

“Okay, I’m confused. What is this place? Who exactly are you, and where are you taking me? You won’t talk, huh? Well, what did I expect? Answers? Like hell I’m getting any. Maybe, that’s my punishment for all of my sins? Welp, I sure deserve it. But there’s a silver lining: if I deserve it, then the human who’d dragged me to the brink of insanity is definitely burning in Hell right now! Hahaha!”

Blue squeezed his hand tighter, as if trying to offer his support.

“So you’re not all that stony, huh? Thanks.”

How long had they been walking? Dust couldn’t tell. He couldn’t feel any hunger at all, nor did he feel hot or cold, and the air around them didn’t seem to have a taste. If it wasn’t for the annoying whispers in the darkness, he would’ve assumed that they were surrounded by a vacuum. He didn’t feel exhaustion anymore either. Instead, a wondrous lightness filled his entire body.

From time to time Dust asked questions that didn’t get answered. On rare occasions Blue deigned to squint at him or squeeze his hand. Still, it was better than nothing.

And so they walked, until something reminiscent of a lighthouse showed up in the distance, far in front of them. It was a source of light brighter than the pathlighter’s soul. Little by little, the darkness abated, its dense body dissipated, and Dust was able to make out some details. With light came life: even though it was hard to see yet, there were definitely living beings moving around inside the spot of light. However, no matter how much Dust strained his eyes, he couldn’t make out just who he saw yet. Were they monsters or humans? Nope, couldn’t tell yet. He was still too far away for that.

Impatient, he walked faster, and soon he was the one pulling the pathlighter along — closer to the light, closer to the moving figures…

What if the light was actually the promised pearly gates, and the figures were angels?

Though once Dust was able to make out more details, he slowed his steps a little. What he saw was peculiar, to say the least.

He felt like a human leaving the Ruins — only instead of the door, he had darkness behind his back, and instead of the forest and the guards station, there was a couch in front, and a very familiar skeleton sitting on it.

The Sans paid zero attention to the Dust who’d come out of the darkness. He kept staring into an interdimensional window, dead to the world around him. Actually, considering he seemed to neither breathe nor move at all, he did look dead, like a mannequin, or a decoy, or a bunch of bones glued together.

Dust didn’t dare come any closer to such a strange Classic. Instead, he stopped nearby, still gripping Blue’s hand. The light of the other’s soul kept him warm, chasing away dark thoughts. It wrapped around Dust like a cocoon, saving him from himself.

Before the revenant from the darkness could ask the strange Sans a question, three new people came from out of the light. Now, this was the most bizarre company the lunatic had ever seen: Error, Ink and Nightmare.

The trio was deeply invested in a chat they were having, as if they were old friends. They habitually settled on the couch, invading the Classic’s personal space, and peered through the interdimensional window as well. They paid no attention to Dust — but at least they were alive.

Perhaps, he wasn’t the only one who survived?

However, the closer to them Dust got, the more details he saw and the more he realized that these people had nothing to do with his Multiverse. The Ink lacked an eye, and an ugly scar crossed his eye-socket. The Error had a long tail that seemed to be in constant motion, annoying the Nightmare… No, this wasn’t a Nightmare. Once Dust came close enough, he realized it was a Dream sitting on the couch — only covered in black sludge for some reason.

Farther in the distance, beyond the couch, Dust could now see figures of monsters and humans hurrying about. He was also able to make out odd buildings, houses and pieces of locations. Dust didn’t head there though — not yet. He stopped by the couch and stared at the odd group of spectators, who were now stuck in a passionate argument.

“I’m telling you, there’s a huge chance that something will change this cycle,” the Error insisted.

“When was the last time you took a look at the code? This cycle’s too short! Even if there are any changes, we won’t even notice them,” the Ink disagreed.

“Oh, knock it off, you two! The hell does it matter? I just want to watch gods fight!” the Dream snapped at them.

Dust turned to look at the window and saw an Eastern-style Multiverse. There was an Ink there, dressed in Eastern clothes and wearing a mask over his face. Apparently, he’d been apprehended by soldiers, who were now escorting him to stand trial.

Dust gathered his courage, gripped his guide’s hand even tighter and asked, “Where am I?” He didn’t bother with pleasantries — such as “hello” — and figured that there was no real need to introduce himself.

“Oh! A newbie.” The Dream grinned, turning away from the window. His friends followed suit. Only the Classic didn’t dare pull his eyes away from the screen.

“You are very not welcome.” The Error smirked.

“My condolences.” The Ink pretended to take off a non-existent hat. Then Dust finally got the long-awaited answer: “You’re in Zero Infinity, pal.”

These words meant absolutely nothing to Dust. He’d expected to hear something about a Purgatory at the very least — or learn that he’d become a renegade ghost at most.

“Zero what?”

The Error snorted and nodded to the Ink: “You started it, so you tell him.”

The Ink shrugged, as if to say: What else am I going to do?

“In short, congratulations: you’ve found yourself in the space between the Multiverses — the home to the lost wayfarers—”

“What Scar here means, is that you’re in what is essentially a Multiversal homeless shelter. Congrats!” The negative Dream chimed in. “If you think your world was cruel and it was hard to survive inside the Void, then you’ll probably die out here.”

“Nah, he won’t die. That would’ve been easier.” The Error snorted. “He would probably turn out like him.” He slapped the Classic on top of the head. The skeleton in question showed no signs of life at all: he was still only sitting and watching the screen. The soulless Blue looked very alive by comparison. “Meet… Uh… We actually have no idea what his name is or where he’s from — but he’s been here longer than any one of us. He’s one of the oldest residents of this cluster. We call him Eternal Viewer.”

“Hi…”

Faced with the eerily welcoming trio and the body that showed no signs of life as it stared into a window to another world, Dust thought that, maybe, he actually liked the darkness he’d come from better. His brain started to short-circuit, and he almost fell into his “flower” state — and he probably would’ve ended up in a state similar to the Viewer — but Blue once again squeezed his palm and warmed him up with the light of his soul. This brought Dust back to his senses.

“Now, hold up! I didn’t get any of that.”

“Want me to dictate it for you so you can write it down?” The Dream snorted. “What didn’t you get, you dust bunny?”

“Everything.” Dust admitted, not daring to come closer to the viewers.

“Okay, enough with the bullying.” The Error suddenly got to his feet and walked up to Dust. His tail seemed to have a mind of its own — and an active one at that: it didn’t stop even for a moment, twisting and swaying side to side. It was hypnotic. “Now, how about you tell us what’s the last thing you remember? We do need to figure out why you ended up here.

“You see, the chances of making it into Zero Infinity are extremely slim. Most of the people who end up here are characters with their code broken, since they have a predisposition for falling out of worlds. In rarer cases, they are the guardians, since those always end up running around through the Voids. Rarer still, it’s someone from the bad guys. Well, and the rarest cases would be the common world dwellers. You, Dust, are a fairly rare guest, so how about you satisfy our curiosity and tell us what happened in your Multiverse?”

Eternal Viewer was the only one watching the screen now. The others all had their eyes glued to Dust, waiting to hear his story. So, once again, he told his story.

His tale got zero emotional response — apart from the Dream’s disdainful whispers of, “Quit complaining,” — until Dust reached the moment with the frightening voice.

“Wait, what did you say the voice said?” the Ink asked. The Dream stopped mocking Dust and tensed. The Error drew away from him.

“‘You failed to meet the expectations placed upon you!’ That’s what the voice said,” Dust repeated.

Even the Classic seemed to shiver lightly at the words.

The trio shared a look. A hint of wariness showed on their faces.

“Nothing is in this cluster?” The Ink’s voice was tinged with excitement.

“I guess so. He hadn’t been around these parts in a while. That figures.” The Dream frowned.

“I guess, the cluster’s going through a cleanup again then. Wow! I sure hope that creature wouldn’t think to take a stroll through the residential area again. Last time it did so, the residents all ran off into the darkness in panic, and not all of them returned.” The Error tried to look unconcerned, but his tail kept drumming on the ground, betraying its master’s tension.

“Not funny, Tail. In case you’ve forgotten, you were one of them.” The Ink smiled, thinking back to that particular event. “We had to hijack a pathlighter and search for you with an annoying dog in hand.”

The Error looked embarrassed by the reminder as he returned to the couch.

“What are you two scared of?” the Dream growled. “It’s not like he would do anything to us. His job is to clear clusters of the expired Multiverses. He doesn’t give a damn about the Zero Infinity residents.”

Dust kept listening to them and trying to grasp what they were talking about, but more than half of it went right over his head.

“‘Nothing’? Is that a name? Was he the one who killed everyone? Was he the one who destroyed my Multiverse?”

The image of that terrifying creature — the way it sucked everyone and everything in — arose before his eyes. It only left Dust alone — left him to live on, as if in punishment.

Fear mixed with rage. He once again felt the desire to raise his LV. Who cared if last time Nothing sent him running in blind panic?!

“Yes and no.” The Dream took the floor again. “It’s the residents of the Multiverse that are to blame for its downfall. Nothing is just a janitor, and if he wiped your Multiverse out of the cluster, then sorry, but your Multiverse is trash.”

“Would it kill you to be a bit more delicate?” The Error frowned. Apparently, he wasn’t an advocate for destruction, unlike the black skeleton Dust used to know. “The guy lost his home Multiverse. Do you remember how sucky it felt when it happened to you? Well, he’s not feeling any better.” Tail addressed Dust then: “Forgive him. But if Nothing took your Multiverse, that must mean you weren’t able to keep it in order. It’s very sad, but that’s life. You should just accept that. Everyone you see did.”

Dust was already struggling to fight down the hatred inside him — and even the light of Blue’s soul couldn’t get rid of it all — when Scar topped it off with: “There’s a strange Error following Nothing around. Annihilator they call him — or something like that. He steals the worlds that didn’t meet expectations, right from under Nothing’s nose and restores the order inside them with an iron fist.”

“Oh, what a hero,” the negative Dream scoffed. “An idiot who thinks he’s an Ink. He’s tailing Nothing and, while that guy sucks in a hundred of a cluster’s worlds, he saves one.”

“He saves at least one of them.” The Error stuck his chest out proudly, as if he was related to the one they were talking about in some way.

Dust bit into his finger until it bled. His hatred started to divert towards the mysterious Nothing, who consumed his Multiverse, and that Annihilator guy, who failed to stop him.

The viewers fell silent, then started to whisper among themselves as they threw wary glances at Dust.

“He’s a newbie. Let’s explain what’s what, or he won’t last a day,” Tail suggested.

“Who cares? Either he lives, or the amalgamation gets a meal. Win-win,” the Dream argued.

“Whatever. Let him figure it out for himself. Zero Infinity has its way of beating people into submission.” Scar chose to remain neutral.

While they were busy talking, Dust recovered a little bit and realized what he wanted. He wanted to find Nothing and Annihilator, find out why his home was taken from him, then exact retribution, if possible.

He walked past the couch and headed further into the light.

“Hey, dude,” Tail shouted after him, “let go of the pathlighter!”

Scar chimed in as well: “His job is to search for newbies and lead them here, not babysit you.”

Dust fixed them with a disgruntled look first, then turned to stare at the soulless Blue, whom he was still holding by the hand. Reluctantly, he let go. Blue’s hand slipped out to hang at his side.

“Welp, take care,” he said to the pathlighter and hurried away.

The trio kept watching them. They saw the newbie let go of the pathlighter and expected him to return to the darkness to search for other lost people. Blue surprised them though. He remained rooted in place, staring at the leaving Dust. Suddenly, he took a hesitant step forward, then another one — and soon he was following Dust, until he caught up with him and stood by his side.

“What was that?” The negative Dream couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Something new.” Scar was surprised too.

“I’ve never seen a pathlighter act like that.” Tail could barely contain his excitement. “How about we ask around about this Dust in a few moves? I think people will have something to tell us.”

“Do you really think he’d become a wayfarer from the get-go?”

“With a pathlighter by his side?” Tail chuckled. “It’s not like he has a choice.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: suicide.
> 
> Special thanks to [Glizi Sweet](https://twitter.com/GliziSweet) and [Neutralcybertrn](https://twitter.com/Neutralcybertrn) for beta-reading this chapter!

The dark part of Zero Infinity was a scary and burdensome beast that tried to devour you alive. The light one turned out to be its complete opposite, burning with life and light.

This bizarre place looked like a patchwork of different monsters’ memories of a variety of worlds, though at times those memories seemed to merge into one and mingle. Here — a waterfall in Snowdin; there — a snowman in Hotland. The locations were separated by walls of light that looked like a hot summer haze, and at times it was hard to tell what awaited you beyond the next wall of haze.

Travelling through the light part of Zero Infinity felt like a strange dream, a trick of mind, a delusion of a hopelessly sick person… A memorial photo that had come to life… An echo flower without a voice… A painful reminder of things that didn’t matter anymore…

Not to those, who walked here, at least.

Dust was surrounded by so many people, who’d lost their home Multiverses, just like he did. Monsters and humans, Sanses and Papyruses, Frisks and Charas, and many others — all of them were able to keep on living after experiencing such a painful loss.

And all of them kept staring at the newbie weirdly.

Dust had no idea that it was extremely unusual for a pathlighter to light the path for a single person only — and in a place where it wasn’t needed to boot — so he figured that all of those shocked glances were aimed directly at him. He thought they must’ve been surprised to see such a sinner like Dust enter their Heaven. He had already seen at least five Nightmares here though, and a single Horror zipped by — a weird one too: he had a digital code inside his skull. Now, here was a Lust harassing some inky substance, and there was a Chara — two of them, actually, and they seemed to be fighting to the death. Two Sanses — a Fell and a Classic — were placing their bets, and a Flowey was helping them with that.

There were _so many_ Errors here. It felt as if Zero Infinity was created specifically for glitched out monsters. Though that kid over there wasn’t an Error: it was a Blue — but black and covered in glitches. And that one over there was a not-Error too — and they even had wings. And — oh god! — was that one a spider?!

He met a lot fewer Inks though. Soulless, they didn’t look all that different from the pathlighters. They drifted through life and the crowds alike, unmoored and getting lost among the living. Sometimes they stood still like bony statues, as if they were merely husks abandoned by their weary souls. Not a pleasant sight. Though sometimes he came across Inks who had a soul of their own — and those seemed to have settled in about as well as the rest of the locals.

He even came across another Dust once. His alternate walked past him, talking to someone invisible and paying no attention to anyone around him. He got lost somewhere at the periphery, and Dust didn’t see him again.

Dust soon grew weary of wandering among the residents of Zero Infinity. They were all going somewhere — and all of them in different directions. Some were sad, some were happy — but all of them had their place in Zero Infinity. All of them knew where they were going.

Not Dust though. He still hadn’t truly grasped what an odd place he’d ended up in, and hadn’t fully accepted that his Multiverse was gone.

“Has everyone here lost their home too? There are so many people here…”

Here, surrounded by the “so many”, he was starting to feel sick. He wanted some peace and solitude.

“I’m tired, Blue.”

The pathlighter, who’d been silently following him this whole time, suddenly stepped forward and pointed to the right. After making his way in that direction, Dust discovered a cozy spot with a bench, a petrified tree and a petrified quiche under the bench.

“Now doesn’t this place look familiar?” Dust chuckled and looked under the bench. A petrified note was lying by the quiche: “ _I wasn’t ready for the responsibility._ ” “I guess, you had this place back in your world too?”

Blue didn’t answer. He sat down on the bench and fixed Dust with a telling look.

“You want me to rest?”

Dust received no answer, but he didn’t need one anyway. He obediently sat down next to his companion, relaxed and missed the moment his head ended up in Blue’s lap. He didn’t sleep — instead he got lost inside his tangled thoughts, and only the soft hand stroking his head didn’t let him lose himself completely.

Too much had happened. He lost his family, his friends, his universe — and now his whole Multiverse. Was it even possible to process all of this and stay sane? Dust didn’t.

The light of Blue’s soul was keeping him warm, keeping him from slipping into despair. It pulled him out of the darkness of oblivion — the place his desire for peace had almost dragged him to. After all, it was the place where his brother was — where everyone was. It was the place where he was supposed to be…

The light of the soul didn’t let him go. It held onto him, pulled him pack, convinced him to keep fighting.

Once Dust came back to his senses, he saw that nothing had changed around him. The strange patchwork of locations and the bright ceiling above them were still there. Unconsciously, Dust looked up, trying to see where the light was coming from, but there was no lightbulb or sun or any other specific light source in sight.

How long had he been here? Was there even such a thing as time in this place? A cycle of night and day? Come to think of it, why _did_ he expect something to change, if there was no sun here and, perhaps, not even any definition of time?

Dust was still confused — but he recovered a little and now realized just whose knees he’d been occupying this whole time. Embarrassed, he hurried to get up and apologize: “Sorry. I guess I was really tired.”

He got the silence he’d already gotten used to in response. The pathlighter got to his feet as well and obediently followed him again.

Dust thought back to the conversation he’d had with the viewers, thought about his desire to find Nothing and Annihilator. And then… He’d know what to do once he found them. With a goal now set in front of him, he instantly set off to achieve it.

He started by asking everyone he met about that famous duo. Most of the residents recoiled from him after he voiced his questions. Others looked scared: “Nothing is here? Great, I am _so_ outta this cluster!”

But there were those who took the mention of those terrible creatures in stride.

“Wow, Nothing?” came a surprised gasp from a Flowey with torn petals, who was standing on a table in a library. “I get it, everyone’s got their own demons to deal with — but why do you insist on making your life that much harder? And no, I don’t know where they are. I’m just a flower in a flower pot.”

“You’re the most insane Dust I’ve ever met.” A Chara looked about as surprised as the Flowey did. Dust found himself wanting to cut their head off — and even pulled out a knife to do so — but Blue suppressed that desire with his light. This allowed the Chara to leave the library unscathed.

“Don’t go searching for death, and death won’t find you.” A Reaper with flowers growing out of his eye-socket wagged his finger at him.

The only one who gave him any pointers for where to look was an alternate Error: “If you want to see Nothing and his perma-tail, then you should look at the border, where light and darkness meet. I saw them there not long ago. No idea what they were doing there. You can ask them yourself, if you have the guts,” he said, pulled up the hem of his velvet robe and walked off deeper into the light.

Dust headed in the opposite direction, towards the darkness — in the direction he’d come from. Or rather, he thought he’d eventually come to the couch where the viewers were. Nope. He actually came out on the other side of the light zone and ended up in a strange location, full of devastation and traces of former military action. He kept wandering around, as if he had nowhere to be, for hours — perhaps even days.

At some point time had lost its meaning. Dust didn’t want to eat, drink or sleep. All of his needs seemed to have vanished. It was always daytime here, and he always felt full and energetic — though his mind was in a constant disarray thanks to the lack of familiar reference points.

He wasn’t the only one suffering though. Sometimes he met people, who looked just as lost as he felt, and that granted him a grain of understanding: this patchwork of locations was just a respite, just a camp to recuperate in before a long journey.

Where was he supposed to go and why? Dust had no idea. He simply knew he wouldn’t be able to stay here for long. The lost look he saw in some of the resident’s eyes would’ve haunted him in his nightmares, if he was still capable of sleeping. To top that off, he sometimes came across people, who seemed frozen in much the same way Eternal Viewer was. They were stuck in different poses, doing different things — but they all looked as if they simply refused to keep moving, like a car that's run out of gas.

Dust discovered another terrifying side-effect of Zero Infinity in one of the libraries. The local librarian wasn’t frozen in place, but he looked like he had no idea that he was a living, sentient being capable of critical thought. Like a machine, he took care of the requests on autopilot: he searched for the books he was asked for, recited the necessary sentences and didn’t react to anything that wasn’t a part of his librarian duties — like a bot.

“Ah, the librarian? Well, that happens to some people here. Just take care not to do the same things non-stop — and you’ll be fine,” a Gaster explained. “Though I suppose that’s not the worst position one could end up in, is it?”

Perhaps, it wasn’t — but Dust didn’t want to end up like that. He didn’t want to freeze or turn to stone or become a bot or a part of the amalgamation. But what else could he become?

He was walking along the edge of the residential area as he searched for Nothing and Annihilator, but he was only getting more and more caught up in the mind-boggling thing that was Zero Infinity. If it wasn’t for the light of Blue’s soul, he would’ve gone completely insane a long time ago.

Days? Weeks? Years?

Or maybe hours? Minutes? Seconds?

Dust had no idea how much time he’d spent on his fruitless search. He was just searching, like a vagabond in search of bread — though the “bread” in question had two legs and was sentient. Blue was always by his side, supporting him and lightening up his soul and his path. It’s his support that kept dragging Dust’s desire to live to the surface.

And so it went, until one day Dust came across a psychopath in the twilight zone.

It all happened too fast. _Bang_ — and Blue fell at his feet. There was a neat gunshot hole in his skull.

“Blue!!!” Dust was caught off guard and didn’t even realize what had happened at first. And once he did — there was a sniper shooting at them! — he tried to summon bone attacks, having forgotten that he had no magic anymore.

A bullet pierced his chest and flew into a wall. Dust fell down next to the pathlighter. He was hurt and so, _so_ angry. He’d survived something that claimed everyone else in his Multiverse — only to to be killed with a fucking gun!

Dust was about to kiss his life goodbye when he realized that he wasn’t in pain anymore. The wound was gone too, as if it was never there. Blue was already getting up too, as if nothing had ever happened, and his soul was still bright as ever. Even the hole in his head was gone.

A Killer leaned out of a window in one of the nearby buildings and held up a sniper rifle: “Scram! This is my street! Leave or I’ll get the grenades!”

Shocked by what had just transpired, Dust got up and led Blue behind the cover of a building. A dense forest was growing beyond it.

“How? Why? Why aren’t we dead?” He was barely holding himself together.

The answer came from up a tree: “Because this is Zero Infinity, baby.” A strange Lust wearing a red cape was sitting on one of the branches and munching on an apple. “You can’t die here — only turn into something different. But if you feel like dying, you can go out into the darkness. Out there, the amalgamation will make quick work of you, turn you into a part of its body and shut down your newbie brain.”

“So in here we’re immortal?” Dust couldn’t believe it.

“Yep.” Lust watched the apple core turn back into a whole apple. “You don’t need to sleep or die or grow or give birth. This place won’t let you live the way you did before. And even though there’s a certain beauty to it, remember: Zero Infinity is ruthless. It’ll take a while, but you’ll get it.”

The Lust had nothing else to say to him, so Dust returned to his search — closer to the edge of darkness this time, circling the light zone. He kept thinking what an odd place he found himself in. Why was it considered ruthless if it granted a life free of pain, death, hunger and other hardships?

Eventually, he got lucky.

He found himself in a creepy-ish empty place that looked a lot like the Save Screen. There was a pillar here, a patch of grass and the living, billowing darkness was waiting just ahead. The image only lacked a Geno.

No Geno showed up, but an Ink came instead — one of the ones who wandered around aimlessly and soullessly. He wore old and ragged clothes, had a blue jacket thrown over his shoulders, and his eye-sockets were empty. He also must’ve lost his paintbrush.

The soulless monster walked past Dust, as if he wasn’t there. He kept walking towards the darkness, and Dust was confused as to why — until the Ink walked out of the light zone and started to disappear in the shadows.

“Hey!” Dust shouted. “Come back!”

There was no answer. The Ink dissolved within the darkness, like sugar in tea. Soon there came a pleased whisper of the amalgamation:

“We welcome you…”

Blue glanced in that direction, indifferent, then suddenly grabbed Dust by the shoulder, making his companion jump in surprise. The guide was pointing with his lamp-bearing hand a little to the right of the place where the Ink disappeared. Someone was standing there, expertly hiding at the border, where light turned into darkness. His black bones and dark clothes seemed to blend in with his surroundings, making him look like a part of them.

The Error’s cold and indifferent gaze — which didn’t look all that different from the gaze of the pathligher — was directed towards where the amalgamation was still in the process of consuming the Ink. Then he turned to stare at Dust.

Dust shuddered. He felt the very core of his being shrink and twist inside him. He found himself wanting to turn around and run as fast as he could, and only the light of Blue’s soul kept the heavy fear from overwhelming him.

The Error slowly walked out into the light. He was barefoot, wore tattered rags as clothes, and his eyes were filled with lines of code.

“Am I scaring you?” he asked.

Dust could’ve told him the truth — _you sure are!_ — but he lied: “As if! Why would I be scared of an Error?”

This lie had the guest from the darkness smiling, though it was weak and barely noticeable. “Did you see the Ink walk out into the darkness?”

“Yes.”

“It sure is sad to see them refuse to fight any longer and become a part of the darkness or a stone statue. Right?”

Dust had little concern for others’ lives. After all, not long ago he was the one stealing lives. He still couldn’t help but agree that a voluntary death was a sad sight.

“Yet even though you’ve chosen a different path, you still refused to become something more.”

“Why would I…” Dust trailed off. He’d only just realized that the Error’s blind stare was focused not on him but on Blue. That’s who he was monologuing at!

“Though I see now…” The Error turned to face Dust, and a new wave of fear crashed into his mind. “You’ve chosen to light a path for this wayfarer. Welp, it won’t be easy. The spot at his side is already occupied by the madness you’ve suppressed. Besides, who knows whether he’d be able to appreciate the gift you’ve given him…”

Having said that, the Error prepared to return to the darkness. However, in spite of the fear weighing him down, Dust perked up. He took a closer look at the Error and saw that the usual glitchy messages of “ERROR” were replaced with something else: the black skeleton had “ANNIHILATION” flickering all over his body.

“Wait. Are you the one who walks with Nothing?”

He got a quiet chuckle in response. The Error once again turned to face him and threw his arms wide: “Do you see him anywhere?”

“But you’re Annihilator!”

“I’m Error!” the black skeleton snapped back and frowned. “Where I go and what I do is my personal business, newbie. And really,” Error stopped frowning, “only a new resident of Zero Infinity would think to antagonize someone like me.”

Dust wasn’t listening. He’d finally found a person he could blame for his troubles and, ignoring his fears, he rushed into a fight.

The Error took the hit with the steadiness of a rock. His body felt like one too. Blood sprayed from Dust’s split knuckles, and he shrieked, while the Error simply brushed the damaged code off his face like a stray drop of water.

The glitch took a moment to admire the terror-filled look on Dust’s face and smiled: “Do you feel better now?”

“No!” Dust lowered his injured hand and stared into Annihilator’s code-filled eyes. “It’s your fault that my world, my Multiverse and everyone I have ever known were swallowed by Nothing!”

The accusations were supposed to strike the Error, but he took them easily, like a gulp of cold water on a hot day. He smiled condescendingly: “And why did you assume that I’m to blame for this tragedy?”

“You didn’t save us!”

“Did I have to?”

Dust was outraged: “Yes!”

“Who told you something so stupid?”

And really, who did? Dust only knew that this Error popped up wherever Nothing did and did something to the worlds that kept Nothing from claiming them. As Tail put it, he “restored the order with an iron fist.” The negative Dream also compared him to Ink. However, no one — not a single person — had said that this was the job Annihilator _had_ to do.

The pathlighter slowly walked up to the two of them and lowered his lamp, as if in reproach. He was actually scaring off the thin tendrils of darkness that started to crawl towards Dust. Blue’s light softened the pain of loss and didn’t allow Dust to lose himself in a wave of apathy.

“You can blame me, if it makes you feel better,” said the black skeleton. “I saved another Multiverse, not yours. And while I was saving it, Nothing claimed hundreds of Multiverses. You can blame Nothing, since he’s the one who took your world. However,” the Error faced the darkness again, “this won’t change the fact that ultimately the people of your Multiverse are to blame for its undoing. Just like in any other Multiverse Nothing takes — mine included. It’s a bitter constant: we’re the guilty ones.”

The past flashed before Dust’s eyes then. He saw his past mistakes, and the others’ mistakes as well. He saw the worlds slowly perish due to negativity after Dream died. He saw the way the Multiverse was thrown off balance. Someone could’ve still done something to fix things back then. But no one did. Not others, and not Dust. He simply accepted that their Multiverse was ending. Like others, he didn’t fight for it. He was just as guilty as everyone else…

“Fine! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have blamed you! But… but… but what do I do now?” Dust was staring at the black skeleton with the look of a lost child.

“Do you really believe that I have the answer?” Error asked without turning to face him.

“And who does?”

“You. Only you have the answer. You can turn to stone out of despair. You can become a part of the ever-hungry darkness. Or you can just live here — live like many others do.”

“But I can’t _just_ live! Not after all I’ve done! Not after everything I’ve been through! And I don’t want to turn out like those, who look like they’re disconnected from reality! I don’t want to freeze like others did! I want to _live_!”

This admission snapped something inside Dust — as if he had steel chains holding him down before, and now they broke and fell off. He felt as if he’d just taken a plunge into ice water. And it’s true: Despite everything, he always wanted to live. He wanted to live when his world kept resetting over and over again. He wanted to live even with dust on his hands and a pile of sins on his back. He wanted to live even when he realized there was nothing to live for anymore. He wanted to live even after he’d lost everything.

He wanted to keep living.

The tendrils of darkness had been trying to reach Dust this whole time — yet suddenly they froze and started to slither away. The darkness was no longer interested in Dust — but he didn’t even notice that.

“Then go, wayfarer. Search for your path. You have someone to light it for you.”

Error slowly walked into the darkness. The amalgamation didn’t dare touch him. Grumbling in displeasure, it parted to let him into its depths.

Dust stood there, staring at the wiggling canvas of darkness. Fear vanished from his soul, taking the chains that had been holding him down, with it. His mind cleared, and he finally knew that he was free to choose his path. What this path would be like depended on him only. And he’d do everything within his power not to repeat his old mistakes on this new journey.

Dust looked into the darkness, and for a moment he thought he saw his brother. He was walking somewhere with a light in his hands. That light wasn’t shining for him though. Not anymore.

He looked at Blue. Dust didn’t know anything about him — not about _this_ Blue, at the very least. He didn’t even know if he could keep calling the kid by this name. All that Dust knew about him was that Blue was ready to keep lighting his path, take away his sadness and inspire a hope for a better future inside him. The pathlighter would keep pushing him until the light of his soul burned out or until Dust stopped needing him.

“Thank you, Blue.”

He got a barely noticeable nod in response.

“Does this mean that you want to be with me?”

Another tiny nod.

“Will you help me find my path?”

Another nod.

Dust smiled, and for the first time in many, many, _many_ years this smile was _real_. “Then let’s head out. I’m actually curious to see who I can become.”

He gave the light of the residential area one final glance and slowly walked down the path that the light of Blue’s soul revealed for him. Their silhouettes soon disappeared in the billowing darkness.

Dust didn’t look back. The path to the unknown was calling him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Note from the author:**
> 
> The second story has come to an end, but we won’t be saying goodbye to Dust just yet. You’ll see him and the pathlighter Blue in one of the future stories.


End file.
